I have to make a few changes to some dns records for a domain I am responsible for and wanted to double check my thinking. Currently the domain is set up with NS, A, PTR and MX records.

What I need to accomplish is moving web traffic from ip X to ip Y. I can not do so internally because there are a number of other domains that rely on this ip address now. I prefer not to proxy the traffic using apache either. So..

The only thing that needs to change in my opinion is the A and PTR record. I just need to be able to move the web traffic from one ip to another. Nameservers will not change so no reason to change the NS records, mail is not changing so I do not want to move the MX record.

2 Answers
2

Correct, if you want to switch a webserver behind www.example.com to a different box with a different IP, you just need to update the A Record for www.example.com to point at the new IP, and update the PTR records for both the old and new IP to reflect the new reality. Run both simultaneously for 24 hours to allow the world's caches to expire, and then you can take the old webserver down.

...and you might also need to add/update spf record
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rvsMar 22 '11 at 13:34

so for mail to function properly PTR and MX are needed? I guess I was misunderstanding that one. Thanks all
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grantkMar 22 '11 at 13:41

1

Your PTR record should match your mailname name (Response you get when you telnet to localhost port 25 on the server)
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MarkMar 22 '11 at 14:02

I have a different PTR entry and have had for a day or so now. Mail still works, I believe in this case mail may not really be a problem seeing as this domain is only used for email aliases. ummm, however I just looked at the domain that handles all the email and it has no PTR.
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grantkMar 24 '11 at 12:35